Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Return of the Speakeasy

The parties move around, from warehouses to photography studios or industrial buildings, the locations kept secret until just hours before they begin.

OMG!! I had noooooo idea that this type of thing was going on!! I mean, who would want to go to a speakeasy or private party when you can go to any number of legal venues in the City of Angels? Just think about how much fun you can have: you can be harassed and flogged by some boorish bouncer on an ego trip, due largely to his newly acquired license to harass anyone and everyone for taking part in such simple pleasures such as having a smoke with one's drink; and you can do all of this while parting ways with a mountain of cash to boot!!

"I just can't understand why adults of all ages and backgrounds would want to patronize such alternative venues!", says the autocratic health bureaucrat on the hill!! Isn't a Saturday night out on the town in an over-regulated environment enough for these people? I mean, geez, the Neo-Bishops of Do-Gooderism have only managed to turn going to many a traditional club into an event that's about as much fun as going to church on a Sunday morning (no offense to religious folk intended)!

Oh, and I've never been to one of these speakeasies either. I would never take part in such a seditious act of festive defiance:-)

Well, that's not something that we'd hope for...but, we all know about the unintended consequences of prohibition...That is, if we have learned anything at all about history.

What's really bizarre about smoking bans is that they are a form of de facto prohibition. Tobacco is a legal activity and is taxed into the high heavens. Never before (that I can think of) has a legal activity that takes place between consenting adults (ie., no one is forced to go to a smoking bar, etc..) been so restricted, at least in the U.S.. As I see it, the bans themselves are illegal and unconstitutional. There has never been a constitutional amendment, like that of the Volstead Act, making the sale and use of tobacco illegal, and therefore non-taxable. What a ban on smoking in a privately owned establishment amounts to in reality is that of an outright (and unconstitutional) restriction on our right (as adults) to assemble while taking part in a legal activity.

The Epidemiological Evidence for Less Hazardous Cigarettes

"The justification for less hazardous or virtually safe cigarettes derives directly from epidemiologic studies. All studies that have linked cigarette smoking with various diseases have also noted that the risks increase with the number of cigarettes smoked daily, with the intensity of inhalation, with how much of a cigarette is smoked, whether the cigarette is filtered or not, and with other features that define the amount, i.e. the DOSE, of smoke inhaled" Dr. Gori-Virtually Safe Cigarettes